Follow the crazy adventures of an Alabama cyclist taking on the Race Across America in 2015.

GCGP Day 2 – Gwinnett Civic Center Criterium

Tough race tonight. Team Type 1 again played it perfectly taking 1st and 2nd with Dan Holt and Alexey Schmidt. Here is how it played out. There was an early break that got a good gap, but I think it was missing TT1 so I was pretty sure it would all come back together, which it did.

Then it gets a little fuzzy but Dan made it into the next move along with Stephen Hirsch (UHC/707) and one other guy (maybe Tim Henry from Litespeed/BMW). This move quickly got a good gap until Mike Stone (Hincapie Devo) went to the front and started to bring it back pretty much single handed. After three or four hard laps he sat up and no one else took up the chase. The gap to the break quickly ballooned to close to a minute – in fact I figured we were going to get lapped.

But then the attacking started. Primary instigators were Mike and myself, but there was also a guy with a black kit and national champ markings on his sleeves (from a different country) who attacked several times. We could never get enough separation in a chase group to escape the field.

Then at the perfect moment when an attack was coming back, Alexey rolled off the front of our group with one other rider. It was a thing of beauty to watch as nobody could respond quick enough. There was a chase again led by Mike but the gap was too big. The break must have been getting tired b/c the two quickly crossed the gap to the leaders making a lead group of six.

The gap from our field to the leaders had come way down to only 15 seconds, but then it was only three laps to go. I found myself on Oneal Samuels wheel, a great sprinter from UHC/707, with two to go and followed him to the very front of the field by one to go. Another rider came around and led out the sprint, but Oneal hopped onto his wheel with me still attached to his wheel. And that is how we finished in the field sprint coming around the other rider by the line. It was only good for tenth in the race, though, as two other riders must have been b/t us and the break of six.

My power meter is still broken, so now power data from the race – but I can tell you it was hard!